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This is Speaking of Faith, conversation about belief, meaning, ethics, and ideas.

I'm Krista Tippett.

Today, a theological perspective on cloning, a conversation with bioethicist Lori Zoloth.

In 1996, a sheep named Dolly made history. She was the world's first cloned mammal.

What we've done is to make a copy of an adult you, so that this is exactly the same as that

animal having a genetically identical twin, except for the fact that one of the lambs is a few

months old, and the you from which we took the cell was already six years old.

That's the voice of Dr. Ian Wilmot, one of Dolly's creators. After Dolly, the birth of a human

clone seemed inevitable, though most scientists close to the field will insist that the safe

cloning of a human being remains a distant possibility. Still, there are recurring reports in the

news of women pregnant with babies who are copies of themselves. Here is audio from a press conference

held by an organization called Clonate on December 27th, 2002. I'm very, very pleased to

know that the first baby clone is born. She's finally called her Eve. We have been discussing with

the parents the last three months how we would handle today, and they decided not to show her

yet. They will. I hope they will. Clonate's claim was quickly dismissed. The purported baby Eve and

her parents never came forward. But why does the idea of human cloning both fascinate and repulse

and what religious questions does it raise for our common life? This hour, we'll explore one

thought-provoking perspective. Lori Zoloth is a scholar of rabbinic wisdom and director of bioethics

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